“Narrative” poetry. A thread:

Narrative poems don’t have to be “lengthy”. And a long poem certainly doesn’t constitute narrative. Here is a short list of things we feel give rise to a narrative poem, and what we fall in love with when reading submissions.

All this is subjective

-Concrete physical spaces. The poem happens in a place(s). As the poem unfolds, the space either becomes more apparent or increasingly liminal through description/relation.

-Lots of tactile/specific objects. These imbue memory & emotion in the reader & speaker. They have weight.

-Names. Names of people, names of pets, of rivers, of streets, of songs and even names of high school mascots! Naming things just breathes a rich life into a poem.

-Temporality. A sense of time/moment/event that gives a kind of momentum to a poem. Cont....

-Temporality can be a memory, or the season, or night/day, or driving to a date, or fishing in a lake. The emotion of the piece is anchored to the event in some way.

-All of these things are only partial ideas, so I hope no one take umbrage with them just felt like sharing.

This actually started as a text thread with @Madelinksi & then I felt like it would make a good thread!

And to be clear: this is not a checklist of things we inspect submissions for. We don’t exclude/include poems solely on these. They’re just things we really to see!